Delivering to the EU under the GPSR – and the Christmas Rush

Delivering to the EU under the GPSR

I have just now, one day before the new GPSR regulation enters into force, been informed that my distributor will be able to continue deliveries to the EU after tomorrow. And that nothing will really change, for Eibonvale Press at least. Given the confusion and chaos surrounding this topic, I hope that is true!

I only found out about the EU’s latest sledgehammer regulation a few days ago and, like many, got into a panic thinking that the EU ‘market’ was finally closing off – that the bureaucracy would finally make selling anything to EU countries beyond possible. I had only a few days to try and find out information and the overall impression was that nobody at all really understood what was going to happen – including, one suspects, the people who created the damn thing in the first place!

It’s hard to say for sure but the feeling is that the regulations themselves are not so ill-intentioned – the problem is that EU regulators treat everyone, including small presses and struggling artists, as though they are international pharmaceutical companies or some such. This is not the first time they have done this. They show a deep obliviousness or carelessness about small-scale enterprise, creativity, doing things on a personal level, or just being interested in stuff. Do they assume that someone like me, who runs a tiny indie press that has never really made much profit in 20 years, can just find hundreds or thousands of extra £, or open offices in other countries, or has multiple departments and teams who can somehow get to grips with the confusion and complexity? I don’t know – it’s hard to avoid descending into rant territory after this exact same problem with bad regulations has arisen multiple times, and each time you end up thinking to yourself “Is this finally the one that ends it?”

As may have been the case with previous events, I hope the chaos will fade a little, things will settle down, they’ll revise the law as needed and clarify the stuff that urgently needs clarifying. I feel Eibonvale got lucky here, and I’m not sure how other presses will handle it in a worst case scenario. But for now, I will continue sending deliveries to the EU countries as usual.

The Christmas Rush

I also just wanted to let people know that we are deep in the pre-Christmas rush at the moment, which means orders are taking considerably longer than usual for the distributor to process. So if you have not received an order yet, I want to reassure you that they are going through the system. All outstanding orders have been sent through to them, as of now. But as always, if you want to check anything up, feel free to drop me an email and I’ll look into it.

Thanks everyone!

Cover Reveal for Alexander Zelenyj’s Exclusive Free Chapbook

It feels a little cruel to reveal the cover of a book that is already unavailable – but I finished work on this one and uploaded it to the printers just half an hour ago! If you placed a pre-order for Alexander Zelenyj’s large collection Beware Us Flowers of the Annihilator, then you will receive this slim hardcover chapbook alongside it – Beware Us Flowers of the Devil. This book contains an additional four stories (we originally said two but got carried away) and it will not be available for sale … ever.

With a colour-scheme that was designed to be both gentle and toxic, and based on a deceptively classic artwork by Warwick Goble, this was again quite a different kind of cover to work on. Lots of colour blending and abstract shapes.

Of course, you can still get Alex’s full collection here. I did receive one report of someone having trouble placing a pre-order through PayPal. We are still not quite sure why, but of course, if anyone has encountered any problems or were prevented from ordering, please do reach out to me and I’ll sort it!

And with this, I can finally put the design work for this particular project to bed. With Colby Smith’s wonderful collection and this increasingly large-scale project happing at roughly the same time, it has been quite a workload and there is still much to do. But in terms of art, I can now turn my attention fully to the next projects, which will be the chapbook Gloom and Glow by Tobias Reckermann and Yesterfang by DF Lewis.

And a very very vague teaser … there might, MIGHT be a new Eibonvale imprint starting up sometime soon. And I don’t mean the still in-preperation photobooks.

Beware Us Flowers of the Annihilator – A First Look

I now have in my hands the first copy of Zelenyj’s collection Beware Us Flowers of the Annihilator, which will be officially launching in just one day now. I’m very happy with how this one has come out – a big, dramatic and very rich collection of stories. The book will be launching at the Weird Windsor event at Windsor Ontario. Anyone able to get there should definitely pay a call – there will be numerous authors, visual artists and musicians involved and admission is free. Being on the other side of the world, I won’t be able to be there myself, alas, but I’ll be with you in spirit!

This also means you have just one day left to take advantage of our pre-order special. Order the book by and including the 16th November and you will receive an exclusive free hardcover chapbook, Beware Us Flowers of the Devil, containing three extra stories. These chapbooks will only ever be available through this offer and orders will be shipped out as soon as the design of that book is complete, which should be fairly soon now. Click here for more info and to place an order: http://www.eibonvalepress.co.uk/books/books_Annihilator.htm

This is also one of the first times I have ever directly used paintings by a living artist on an Eibonvale cover, with two beautiful and moody works by Canadian artist Carl Lavoie. These became centrepieces in a paper-and-metal collage and I love the way they look. Maybe this is something I will come back to.

A few early reviews, which I will present in more detail later:

https://www.horrordna.com/books/beware-the-flowers-of-the-annihilator-alexander-zelenyj-book-review

https://gnofhorror.com/alexander-zelenyj-beware-us-flowers-of-the-annihilator/

https://thebedlamfiles.com/fiction/beware-us-flowers-of-the-annihilator/

A Look at Our Latest Release: The Universe as Performance Art by Colby Smith

Colby Smith’s unusual, diverse and experimental collection The Universe as Performance Art is the latest release from Eibonvale Press, available now in hardcover and paperback. Here is the text from the book cover:

The Universe as Performance Art, Colby Smith’s first short fiction collection, is a disquieting, panoramic gallery exhibition obsessed with art’s arranged marriage with Nature and the consequences of art itself. Here are stories of an epidemic of fossils repurposed as psychotropic drugs, the Marquis de Sade’s first orgasm, queer love nourished—and destroyed—through making and documenting graffiti, and others. The title story is at once a staged, Fluxus-esque creation myth and a structurally daring prose poem. The Universe as Performance Art is an indispensable contribution to the Neo-Decadent international art movement canon and a formidable short fiction debut by any standard.

“Colby Smith’s extreme and poetic vision—immense, psychedelic flowers!—is a cosmos driven by the lithified dead, the cannibalistic heavens, the revelry after the destruction of creation. These stories read like nerve ganglia lit by Ursa Minor, writ by hands tending to abnormal forms in a fatal garden.”

—Paul Cunningham, author of Fall Garment and The House of the Tree of Sores

Seeing existence itself as a kind of performance art – whether in an absolute sense or on a human level, with no division between basic existence and creative processes – is a clue to the range of processes going on in this book. Ranging from neo-decadent and experimental literature, to slipstream and hints of genre, to science and palaeontology and beyond, it’s an exceptionally diverse recipe of stories and an excitingly original literary voice.

In terms of designing the cover, this very directly followed the scrappy collage style that I keep coming back to. To generalise, there have been several different styles that keep reappearing in Eibonvale covers. There was the early days when I was trying to use Photoshop to create semi-realistic but surreal dioramas, then came the “Museum Showcase” style where everything is framed up for display, and then there’s the “Scrappy City Wall Covered in Stickers and Posters” style. I think it was Rosanne Rabinowitz’s Resonance and Revolt where that first started emerging – the eruditely revolutionary style of her writing suggesting urban anger very easily. But the nice thing about these sticker walls is that I can maintain full control over just who lives in this city. And if that urban angst includes old Iranian art, outdated dinosaur reconstructions and drawings of microsnails from my own childhood, then so be it. Such a city may exist. And in the case of Colby Smith, such a city HAS to exist.

Grab a copy of the book here: http://www.eibonvalepress.co.uk/books/books_PerformanceArt.htm and as always, postage is free on orders over £20, which includes the hardcover version. Also, we are always looking for more reviewers, so if you have a blog or a place to share, please do reach out for a review copy.

Beware Us Flowers of the Annihilator – Plus an Exclusive Free Chapbook

There is a new Eibonvale book coming soon – Alexander Zelenyj’s big collection Beware Us Flowers of the Annihilator. The hardcover will be launching on the 16th November and that gives us the chance to run a special offer until then. Anyone ordering the book through the Eibonvale website up to and including that date will also receive an exclusive free chapbook containing a few extra stories by the author. This chapbook will never be offered for sale and we will only produce enough to cover those preorders. So you’ve got a few weeks to secure a copy!

Click here to see more and to get a copy: http://www.eibonvalepress.co.uk/books/books_Annihilator.htm

“There are few short story specialists as prolific, endlessly entertaining, creative, and simply batshit crazy as Alexander Zelenyj. These bizarre stories often capture startling snapshots of life, coming-of-age moments, heartbreak, or individuals trapped within the ripples of otherworldly occurrences. The natural ability to effortlessly flow between genres is a rare gift and few do it better, where literary rulebooks are discarded and the monsters are frequently the most compassionate characters. He has an unpredictable and jarring writing style, which takes plots and narratives into bizarre directions, often slipping down sideroads, instead of directing his narratives into the realms of the crowd pleasing money shot. He refuses to play by any literary rulebook, except his own. This is all part of Alexander Zelenyj’s unique charm.”

– Tony Jones, Horror DNA